


The Only Real Magic is Love...Also Magic. Magic is Actually Real.

by anarchycox



Category: The Witcher (TV), Wiedźmin | The Witcher (Video Game), Wiedźmin | The Witcher - All Media Types
Genre: Adventure, Alternate Timelines, Alternate Universe, Feels, M/M, Magic Gone Wrong, Monsters Aren't Real, Multi, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Past Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia/Yennefer z Vengerbergu | Yennefer of Vengerberg, Post-The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt, Slow Burn, True Love, dandelion and jaskier are separate characters, dandelion is jaskier's ancestor, fairy tale, grown up Ciri, happy ever after, oh shit monsters are totally real, sleeping beauty esque, soft fic, weird hybrid of show and video game
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-07-07
Updated: 2020-07-29
Packaged: 2021-03-04 19:41:18
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 6,927
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25121821
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/anarchycox/pseuds/anarchycox
Summary: Jaskier is a thoroughly modern man of the late 16th Century. Incredibly well educated and growing reputation as a singer, actor, playwright, as his mother was, and her father, all the way back to Master Bard Dandelion - the man who created the famed and mythic legend of the white wolf - Geralt of Rivia.It is a world that has forgotten magic and monsters, burned it all out of memory, of history.And on his 21st birthday, Jaskier is handed Dandelion's secret journals, that tell the truth of the world 400 years ago, and of the disappearance of the wolves and of Kaer Morhen.It is all bullshit of course, but still, secret journals, a mystery of forgotten men - it will make an excellent story to write, the saga of following in a legend's footsteps.Only Jaskier will learn that magic was once real, and will be real again. And that Geralt of Rivia was no myth, and that sometimes there is a lot of truth in stories that begin with "Once Upon a Time."
Relationships: Aiden/Lambert (The Witcher), Eskel/Triss Merigold, Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia/Jaskier | Dandelion
Comments: 85
Kudos: 183





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [kaermorons](https://archiveofourown.org/users/kaermorons/gifts).



> well here we go! not even going to pretend that this isn't going to be a huge story.
> 
> first chapter does have some spoiler for the game, but we are also ignoring the deaths of certain characters in the witcher 3 and i'm muddying timeliness because hey fic! 
> 
> i hope you enjoy this fairy tale.

~~_Once Upon a time,_ ~~

~~_A long time ago,_ ~~

~~_In the dark,_ ~~

~~_There was chaos and then,_ ~~

~~_There once was a hero Ger_ ~~

~~_I was there when_ ~~

~~_It was a dark and stormy night_ ~~

_I have lived 71 years and haven’t told the complete truth since the first time I swore I ate all my peas when I was not yet four. That is a long time to pretend. I am not sure I even know how to tell the truth anymore. But I am going to try, finally, before time runs out, so that you can know who I was._

_No, I don’t matter, not really, I wrote songs, stories, completely and utter bullshit. I glorified them, and myself, myself far too much._

_It is time to set it to rights._

_I was born Julian Alfred Pankratz. I was the Viscount of Lettenhove._

_I was a master bard, a drunkard, a womanizer, a wastrel._

_I was also a spy, a soldier, a pawn._

_The most important thing I was though, was a friend._

_I made him a legend, the White Wolf of Kaer Morhen._

_But he was Geralt of Rivia, and he tried. He tried so hard. And he will be forgotten. He will become myth._

_You’ll know the truth though, my beloved grandson, my Leon._

_His name was Geralt, he was my best friend, and he called me Dandelion._

*

“Dandelion, you need to stop,” Zoltan was blocking his door, and Dandelion was ignoring him for right now. Every year he or Priscilla tried to stop him from going out, from looking for Geralt, and every year he didn’t listen. Because he wasn’t going to stop until he was dead.

He was going to find his friend. His family. Dandelion finished packing, and stood there. “Zoltan, I heard some rumours, I need to investigate.”

“You say that every year, and every year you find nothing, Geralt is gone. They all are.”

Dandelion shook his head. “No they aren’t. I know they aren’t.” Zoltan’s face was pitying; he and Priscilla had given up hope three years after the disappearance. “Zoltan, they are there, just out of reach. I feel it in my gut, and I am going to find them.”

“Dandelion, they are gone, but there are others who aren’t who need our help. Triss was hoping -”

“She might have given up, that’s her choice, but it isn’t mine,” Dandelion snapped. “A whole keep gone, Zoltan. A whole fucking keep with the strongest witchers, and Ciri and Yen, the two most powerful women ever born of chaos. That doesn’t just cease to exist! Something happened, and I am going to find out what it was, and how to get them all back.”

“Your dedication to this is madness,” Zoltan said. 

Dandelion looked at him. “Then I am mad. If I was lost, Geralt would never stop looking for me. And I will do the same.” Dandelion set out, followed every rumour, helped a few witches running from the eternal flame, told them how to find Triss’s network. He lost a couple weeks of research and searching when he was captured for questioning. He also lost two fingers and an eye, but he hadn’t had need of them. He had his feet still to keep walking. He walked all the way to Kaer Morhen was supposed to be. To where you’d think there had only ever been mountains. It wasn’t that there was a ruin, there was just nothing. As if there never was a something.

What hurt the most was that in the twilight, when he looked only out of the corner of his eye, he could swear he saw the keep. Saw Geralt, sword raised on the ramparts. He camped there for a few nights, tried magic spells though he didn’t carry a drop in him. And he sang, old songs, new songs, anything he could think of until he was hoarse, until there was nothing left in him and he wept. “I should have been with you,” he whispered.

A portal opened, and there was Triss. She crouched in front of him. “You are needed at home, Dandelion.”

“They are there, I can feel them. Tell me you can’t. Stand right here, and look out the corner of your eye, and tell me they are completely gone, completely lost, like you always do. Tell it to me here and now, and I will believe you.”

“He came,” Triss glanced out of the corner of her eye. “With flowers. Said he was sorry, that he could understand after Geralt breaking my heart, that I probably wouldn’t want to even look at another witcher. Who would want to look at him, after all? But still, he thought I deserved flowers. We had one kiss before he came to ready the keep. And I went to gather as many mages as I could. A fleeting kiss.” Triss touched her lips. “I would have liked another.”

“Tell me you see nothing out of the corner of your eye. Tell me all hope is lost Triss.” Dandelion shifted his eyes, and he could see the tallest tower of Kaer Morhen, green magic around the whole thing, and when he looked it was gone again.

“There is hope, but it is not for us, not for them,” Triss said. “It is for the ones that we can still help. The ones Geralt would tell you to help. You are needed at home, Julian. A situation has arisen.” She stood, and held out her hand. He saw it, the flicker in her eye as she glanced over and froze.

“You saw it.”

Triss nodded, but put her hood over her hair. “We can’t, not anymore.”

“I can,” he insisted.

“Come, Julian,” she held out her hand and he took it. The corner of his eye, he almost saw the keep, almost saw Geralt. He wanted to stay, he could maybe figure it out if he stayed. But she tugged and he followed.

They were in the Rosemary and Thyme, in his private rooms, and Priscilla was holding a bundle, singing to it. “I wasn’t gone long enough for you to have a baby,” he said.

“It isn’t mine, you - oh Melitele,” Priscilla gasped as seeing the eye patch, the missing fingers. “Dandelion.” The babe wailed that she had stopped singing, and she began again. “He is yours,” her voice rose and fell, “Left on our steps a week ago, we sent word to Triss, to find you.”

“I haven’t bedded anyone in years,” Dandelion pointed out.

“It is your grandson, Dandelion,” Triss said quietly. “I can feel your blood in him.”

“Oh,” Dandelion had to sit. “A grandson?” He had known it likely he had sired bastards over the years, he had fucked around so much, and never particularly cared. “Do we, was there a note?”

“Just that he was your problem now, you were the only left to care for him. He is about three months old,” Priscilla said. “The note’s on your desk.”

“Let me,” Triss said, and took the baby eagerly. “You are so beautiful, sweet one,” she crooned.

Dandelion went to his desk and read the note. They didn’t even leave what the babe’s name was. He dragged his hand over his face. “Fuck,” he whispered. Geralt had always said his ways would catch up with him. Just took longer than was expected. “What do I do?” he asked them. Triss and Priscilla just stared at him. “I can’t. I can’t,” he said and went downstairs, and got completely shit faced. He was drunk for four days, and the headache was horrific.

When he was sober he went up to his rooms and Priscilla and Triss were well ensconced and the baby was lying on his back, feet kicked up in the air. Dandelion went and sat on the ground. He could feel their eyes on him. “Geralt was a good father. He’d be so mad at me if I wasn’t.” He ran a finger over that chubby little foot and the baby giggled. “What have you named him?”

“We didn’t think it was our place, and we assumed well, that you’d name him Geralt.”

Dandelion shook his head. “No, not that.” It would hurt him every day to call Geralt, and have it not be the one he had known answer. “Leon, a simple and strong name.” He reached out and picked up Leon. Held him against his chest. “Triss, they are there out of the corner of our eye.”

“I know,” she said. “I know. And we can still research and try but -”

“But,” Dandelion agreed. He pressed his face into Leon’s neck. “But.” But there was another concern now, one that Geralt would tell him was more important. Dandelion took a deep breath and sang to Leon about the White Wolf.

*

“Grandfather, this is madness,” Leon protested.

“Of course it is, I’m quite mad,” Dandelion replied. He coughed, the rattle had settled in this winter, and wouldn’t go away. It would never go away. Or rather it would go away soon enough, and so would he. He had bargained with every god and every devil ever named and unnamed to live long enough to finish his journals and he had. But he didn’t have much left. And it was going to be spent on one last adventure. One last try. “But your Auntie Priscilla already told you to indulge me, didn’t she? A dying man’s wish.”

“Grandfather, you aren’t dying,” Leon tried to insist. “We can try again. There must be a way to find Triss. Or another mage.”

“Where my boy? The eternal flame has done a fucking great job of stamping magic out. Not even a single drowner in the sewers of Novigrad these days. No mages, no monsters, the time of men is really fucking boring.” Dandelion looked at his beautiful grandson. “I will not dying in a boring world. Take me north, Leon, take me home.”

“This is your home,” Leon said. “Comfortable bed, wine. Friends. Me. Can’t you last a little longer for me?”

Dandelion smiled at him. He had raised a good man. Fuck knew how that had happened. “A little longer. For an adventure. A last one.” 

They finished packing, the wagon fairly light. Dandelion remembered all the years he had walked the continent. Free. Nilfgaard had made it far less so. They hadn’t seen Triss in years. He prayed she lived, but had no idea, she didn’t have that certain spark in his heart like the others did. Zoltan and Priscilla saw them off, Priscilla crying, Zoltan handing a package to Dandelion and whispered instructions that would make his last moments painless.

“You’ll look after my boy?” Dandelion asked, as if he hadn’t asked it a dozen times already.

“Of course,” Zoltan swore.

There were no more goodbye words to be said, and Leon guided the wagon out of Novigrad and they headed North. “Once there was a man named Geralt of Rivia,” Dandelion began.

“Grandfather, I know all your stories,” Leon reminded him, “I grew up on them.”

“You didn’t grow up on this one,” Dandelion said. “The last one. Saved it.” The ride was bumpy and he tired so easily these days. Eventually they had to stop so that he could lay in the back of the wagon. “Geralt was tired, more tired than ever, because he had spent so long finding his daughter. And he did. The world stood on an odd precipice of peace for just a moment. The daughter was to become the Empress of Nilfgaard, he was to retire with his true love. They had even saved Vesemir with magics that should have been forgotten, but gave one last gift to the wolf school. It was to be good, and then Ciri made a mistake. She called Geralt her true father, as she protected a sorceress. And Emhyr, became who he had been before. Only more. And the true purge of magic began.”

“I know, everyone knows about the purge,” Leon said. 

“What you don’t know, is some were willing to stand against it. I stood against it. With my friends.” Dandelion fell asleep for a few hours, woke to the crackle of a fire, Leon cooking rabbit over it. He had taught Leon snares, just as Geralt had taught him. He was annoyed how much help he needed to get out of the wagon to sit by the fire. His fingers hadn’t been able to play for a few years now, the pain too much in bones that had gone brittle, crooked. But he could still sing, even if it was raspy and thin. He sang a song he hadn’t ever before for Leon. “Code in that song, safe directions to where Triss could secret you away. We all built a plan. Kaer Morhen was going to be a sanctuary, a last stand at the end of the world. For magic, for freedom from the eternal flame. Everything was slowly getting in place. The wolves were all there, Ciri, Yen. Triss was hiding witches, and I was greasing the wheels. Bribing people, gathering black market goods. I was helping. Not something I did a lot or well. But Geralt believed in me and I wasn’t going to fail.”

Dandelion had to wipe away a tear and he ate some of the rabbit, but not enough to satisfy Leon. He never much these days. “And something went wrong. I don’t know what, but it did and the whole world felt it. The whole continent shook. The sun went black. Not an eclipse, but black like Geralt’s eyes on certain potions.” He listened in the woods. “Do you hear that?” he asked. “A wraith?”

“Grandfather, there are no monsters not anymore. Only a few stragglers after the day of the black sun. They mostly died that day.”

“No, my boy, they went to sleep, to hide. There are still monsters out there a plenty. Waiting.” Dandelion laughed a bit. “How long will it be before they are forgotten, before it is all forgotten.” He looked at his grandson. “Promise me, you won’t forget. You have to promise me you won’t forget.”

“I won’t forget you,” Leon promised, “I never good.”

“No, I don’t matter, I’m the teller of tales, they are what matters. Never forget the tales. Pass them on pass them down. Never let our family line forget magic. And Geralt.”

“I won’t. I hope to have a whole passel of children. Not bastards,” Leon teased. “A wife I love who tends the Rosemary and Thyme with me, and we raise beautiful and plump babies. I would have liked you to have met them.”

“I would have liked that too.” Dandelion let Leon help him into the back of the wagon and he slept and dreamed of walking the world with Geralt. Of teaching Ciri to cheat at cards, of bickering with Yen. Eventually they reached the point in the path where the wagon could go no farther and had to go on horse, and then on foot. Dandelion’s cough got worse on the hike and he ignored Leon’s insistence that they head back down.

When they reached the right spot, Dandelion sat on a rock.

He tried to see the keep out of the corner of his eye, and remembered to turn his head, because there was no actual eye on that side. Not that he could see that well out of the other one, but it was there, just a shimmer, but Kaer Morhen was there. “Look, over there.”

“At the mountain that looks like all the other mountains around here? Grandfather, I don’t understand why we came here. Why you used the last of your energy for this.”

“Oh my boy,” Dandelion smiled. “Don’t look directly, just out of the corner of your eye. Look with your heart.”

He laughed a bit when Leon fell on his ass. “What the fuck was that?”

“Kaer Morhen, just out of reach. Whatever happened that made the monsters go to sleep, that made the sun go black, it happened there. My friends, my family, the keep I had spent so many winters at, all gone in a blink of an eye.”

“But it is there, and then it isn’t?” Leon kept looking straight on and then out of the corner of his eye. “Grandfather? Who is that on the rampart?”

“That is Geralt. My friend.”

“I’ve always wondered about the two of you,” Leon said.

“You can keep wondering, because some stories are mine and his alone,” Dandelion said. “I should have been there, with them. I thought that for so many years. But I am glad I wasn’t because then I wouldn’t have had you. My boy, my beloved grandson.” He looked out of the corner of his eye and felt like he could almost reach them. “Back home, in a chest. My lute and my journals. Been writing them for years. Promise me -”

“I promise I will get them published.”

Dandelion reached out and gripped Leon. “No,” he growled, “Never. Not those journals. Anything else, fine. But in those journals is the truth. That truth only gets passed down in the family, the eldest child. I couldn’t find them, but that doesn’t mean they weren’t meant to be found. Pass the journals down, Leon. Remember that magic is real, that heroes are real, and that monsters lay in wait. I couldn’t solve the puzzle, but I know someday my blood will.” Dandelion looked over. “The answer is there, it just wasn’t mine to find. Promise me, sweet one. That you believe.”

“I do,” Leon swore. “I will.” Dandelion nodded. “You don’t try to carry me back down. I want to be here, with them. Bury me against the mountain over there, under a mound of rocks.” 

“Grandfather,” Leon was crying. “Please.”

“My boy, I have lived through so much, seen so much, done not nearly enough.” Dandelion took the bottle that Zoltan had given him. He looked at his grandson so that he could see his beautiful face, and out of the corner of his eye, Kaer Morhen. He drank the bottle. “I never loved anything as much as I loved you Leon.” Dandelion fell asleep, fell into death, with his grandson holding his hand, singing a song about the white wolf.

Leon buried his grandfather in rocks and returned to Novigrad, where Zoltan and Priscilla helped him mourn.

He married a teacher, and they named their first born Juliana, and he passed the journals to her when she turned 21.

And so on and so on.

And so on and so on.

And so on and so on.

And ever on.

_400 or so years later_

“Mama, just once more?” the little voice asked. “A short one, please?”

“Julian, my love you’ve already had three stories about the white wolf tonight.” She tucked the blankets around him, her stage lipstick bright and garish, powder from her wig on her almost bare scalp. He thought her magic. She blew out the candles and it was dark. He loved the stories in the dark best of all. “One more, Julian, and then you have to sleep.”

“I will, Mama,” he promised. “Mama you agreed though.”

“I’m sorry,” she said. “Jaskier, I’ll remember better.”

He had come up with the nickname when he had eaten a few buttercups and gotten very sick. It would remind him that pretty things could hurt you. Except his mama, she was a pretty thing and never ever hurt him. “I love you, Mama,” he said. He could hear the roar of the crowd below of the family bar. He had sung a couple times with his mama on the stage. All Pankratz were performers, he said it as proudly as Mama did. Ever since Master Bard Dandelion everyone in their family performed. He was gonna be just as good a singer as his personal hero had been. 

“I love you too, Jaskier,” she said. “Now then. Geralt of Rivia had been very fortunate to run into his best friend in the whole wide world in Beauclair,” she began and he fell asleep barely half way through the story. And he dreamed of odd things, a keep, people in funny old clothes frozen in time. When he woke he didn’t remember, he just rushed downstairs ready to play, because Mama had promised they could work on the play they had been writing together.

About the white wolf of course. Geralt of Rivia was the bestest made up character of all time. And it was so cool that his ancestor was the one to make up the stories of everyone’s favourite imaginary folk hero.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So this is about 400 and a bit years later, the Continent is in full swing of the Baroque era. There is a pinterest inspiration board for this fic if you are interested in that sort of thing: https://www.pinterest.ca/anarchycox/magic-is-magic-reference-pics/
> 
> this chapter is unedited because it is just too damn hot to edit.

Jaskier stood there, back turned to crowd, lounging on his walking stick. His wig was unbearably hot, and his make up would be running before the night was over, but in this moment alone on the stage, the crowd holding their breath, waiting for him to speak. The king and queen of Aedirn were even leaning forward in their box. He turned his head just a bit, looked out at the audience, “In this the land of Cintra does our story begin, a tale of a queen, a promise, and the strong never giving in. Let us share how heroes are made, how dreams come true,” Jaskier carefully turned to face the royal box and gave a deep bow, deep enough for a moment he worried about his wig, “In the story the bard Dandelion did write, we see ourselves and our past, the human condition to entertain us this all too short night.” He straightened and moved into the proper position and the play began, one written by his great grandfather, a huge hit across the continent.

He hadn’t been able to resist adding his own flare to the play, and had tweaked some of the blocking, made suggestions for line deliveries. He had convinced the troupe that a one night only performance would be the talk of the whole winter, and they soon were in agreement with his plans, he had that Pankratz ability to get people to listen to him. They even enjoyed his small changes; everyone always played up the drama of the play and forgot the humour. He lost himself in the words that he had memorized since he was seven. He had known Dandelion’s words before anything else. Legend had it that the first word he had said was not Mama or Papa, but _hi olf_ for white wolf, the stories that had been sung to him since birth. His mother loved that story so much, told it so many times. He could hear it in his head, her voice. A voice he hadn’t heard in person in three years, but that would change soon enough. He performed admirably, and there were cheers in the crowd, rollicking laughter, gasps at events they knew would happen. When he character lay in a fake death, he heard weeping, and it was all he could do to keep a smirk off his face.

At the end the applause was deafening and Jaskier took his bows. After, there was a grand celebration to close the theatrical season of Aedirn as winter was approaching. “Jaskier, please,” the queen tucked her hand into his arm. “You cannot leave the city. We’ll be bereft without you.”

“Your majesty is far too kind, to a humble performer such as myself, but I am afraid it is time for me to move on. There is much to be learned across the continent about my craft, and I will seek that knowledge all my life. A wanderer, like master Dandelion himself. They say I look surprisingly like him, though who can truly compare to a man of his stature.”

The queen had carefully guided him to a corner of the garden where shrubs easily hid them. In a moment his wig was knocked askew and her lips were pressed against his. “No, I cannot live without you,” she said against him. “My life was so dark before you, I cannot bear it. I order you to stay, fine rooms, gems, I will name you the royal director of the theatre. No one loves me like you do.”

Shit, Jaskier thought, she was laying it on a bit thick, considering he had seen her fucking a stable boy a week ago. Jaskier pressed his lips carefully against her neck. “Your majesty, I do love you, more than I can name, and that is the reason that I must move on. To be near your grace, your divine beauty, and not have it every night, I could not bear it. My dear, do not ask me to live with this torture. Let me leave, and I will write magnificent poems about your beauty, our forbidden love. I will make the whole continent weep for what we had to let go of.” He brushed a thumb under her eye, knowing damn well to not smudge the beauty mark she had painted there. “I will make your beauty legendary,” he whispered and slipped he hand under miles of fabric and brought her off. A brooch was pressed into his hand to remember their time together and then she disappeared back into the party.

Jaskier sighed, there were perks about Aedirn that he would miss, like the queen’s cunt, but he also knew you never stayed the favoured mistress - a lesson passed down through many generations. He was making his way back towards the gala when strong hands pulled him into an alcove. A hard kiss was pressed against his mouth, and his wig was knocked off, yet again. Hands were clawing at his clothes. “You cannot leave, Jaskier, I need your pretty body too much,” the king was pressing against him.

“Your majesty, it is all I can do to survive the thought of not being pressed against you, my tongue already feels the lack of your cock on it, but we cannot be.”

“I will buy you an apartment, you’ll want for nothing.”

Melitele if these two even spent half the time they did fucking around on state business, Aedirn would be in a far better economic standing. “I would want for you,” Jaskier crooned. “Please your majesty we have had a wonderful year, a summer romance that burned stronger than the sun, don’t let it scorch us to cinders.” Jaskier sank to his knees, and started on the many layers the king had. He wrapped his lips around the king’s cock and brought him off quickly, knowing exactly what the man liked, and the fact that he had a hair trigger for this helped. A ring was pressed in his hand, and then the king was gone. Jaskier rolled his eyes, the man had never been very giving in bed. He stayed and danced, and perhaps was a bit drunk, and a few people in the crowd called for him to recreate a few moments from the play. 

Jaskier smiled at them. “No, sadly it truly was a one time performance, but perhaps you can enjoy this instead.” Jaskier cleared his throat dramatically and began to clap his hands. A few cheered recognizing the ancient song. Jaskier had always adored Her Sweet Kiss, and it was still remembered well by the broken hearted. He sang a couple of Dandelion’s other big songs, and then he sang a couple of his own. His songs weren’t quite taking the continent by storm, but he was young yet. Dandelion’s fame only truly began to reach heights in the man’s late twenties, and Jaskier was already becoming renowned at not quite twenty one. 

Another reason he had to go home. When he had left before he was eighteen, to go to school, his mother made him promise to return for his twenty first birthday, that every Pankratz spent that birthday at home since forever. The party went until almost dawn and he went to his quarters at the theatre, pulled his wig off and collapsed for a few hours until there was a knock on his door. “King arranged transportation for you to the border, passage on a boat to Redania.”

Jaskier smiled, his blow jobs coming through as they always did. He dressed carefully, in good clothes and a wig suitable for traveling - it only went to his biceps, versus the ones that were almost waist length. He carefully hid on his person the gifts from the king and queen, they would be treasured for always, until he reached the correct shop in Novigrad. Three years and he had all sorts of those little treasures amassed. The Rosemary and Thyme would be able to go years without worry of a lean winter. He could almost smell the ale, hear the shouts. A week, ten days at most and he would be home. There had been letters, but it wasn’t the same. He wondered how much Priscilla had grown, she had been barely fourteen when he left. He wondered what his mother was doing these days to deny her age. He had picked up some creams that would amuse her. 

He set out his bags carried by servants and the carriage had the royal seal on it. He smiled and waved goodbye to the friends he had made here, shouting drinks were on him if they made it to Novigrad. It was luckily an uneventful journey home, and he felt his eyes well at the sight of the eastern gates of Novigrad. He breathed in. “Yes, it still smells like despair, shit, washing day, and the sea.”

“Never known Novigrad to smell any different,” an old man said. Jaskier paid some runners to take his bags to the tavern, and he walked slowly breathing it all in, listening to people, seeing the local fashion. He checked the clock tower and the early show at the Rosemary would be starting soon. Jaskier wound his way home, and he could hear singing on the stage, an incredibly bawdy song his grandfather had written. His mother’s voice rose on the high parts, and he stood at the window and listened. He had missed it so.

But he waited, a Pankratz knew how to make an entrance. The last line was coming and he burst through the door, and belted it out. The crowd was unsure what to do for a moment, until they recognized him and cheered his return. He took a bow, “My friends, and patrons, have you missed me?” 

“Oh were you gone? I suppose I noticed since there was no one hogging the stage as much.” His mother had her hands on her hips and she was as utterly gorgeous as he remembered. All he wanted was to be like her - daring and magnificent. 

“I hardly think we can call my footprint hogging with the way you sustain that last note, though getting a bit pitchy in your dotage?” He teased, just so he wouldn’t cry at beginning home again. “I didn’t miss any of you at all,” he said and blinked so as not to cry.

“Well, get up here, regale us with the world,” Juliana ordered. She gestured and a barstool was brought up. He jumped on the stage and looked at the crowd. He grinned and ripped the wig off, ruffled his hair, and put it on his mother’s head. 

“Let me tell you about the things I saw in my travels - things you cannot begin to image in your wildest dreams. Sea creatures, harems, worlds untouched, forgotten, cities filled with mystery. Let me tell you of the things I have seen,” Jaskier said and spoke for an hour, his mother occasionally feeding him lines to bounce off, responding dramatically, to work the crowd up even more.

Kings, queens, prime ministers, the nobility - he had performed for them all the last couple of years, and they didn’t compare to the crowd of home. Of the Rosemary and Thyme. He eventually gave a bow and the back up musicians took to the stage to perform. His throat ached and he went to the bar. “An ale good woman,” he said to the barmaid.

He was passed the drink, and he didn’t drop it, because that would have been too cliched, but it was close. “Priscilla?”

“Mama thought you wouldn’t recognize me.”

“I could never forget your eyes, my sweet one.” She had grown so much, in height, into adulthood. “Look at you,” he pressed a hand to his heart. He went around the bar and hugged her. “Running the place already?”

“Uncle’s been teaching me the ropes,” she promised. 

“And do you like it, is it what you want?”

Priscilla rolled her eyes and punched him. “What the second born does, isn’t it? Runs the Rosemary and Thyme.”

Jaskier shook his head, cupped her face, “But do you want it?”

“Do you want to be an actor?” she challenged. “Sing the songs of those who came before us? Hope that yours get remembered too?”

“Fair, and yes I do. I will be the most famous since Dandelion himself,” he swore.

“And I’m going to run this place, make the best profits in four generations. If I can get uncle to give me just a bit of money, I have some ideas.”

“Well, I collected interesting things while I was away, that I was going to sell, and invest in new stage clothes. But I think I can spare some for you.” He looked at her, “Priscilla,” he smiled, “You are a picture.”

“Your ale is getting warm, and men dressed as fancy as you, only get the first drink for free,” she said. “Get out of my way, I have work.”

Jaskier went back around the bar and their mama was looking at them tears in her eyes. “Look at my babies,” she said, and they both scoffed. “Jaskier you going to be up to doing a set later tonight?”

He was tired and energized at the same time. “I will be, just need to freshen up a bit.”

He went to the family quarters at the top and had a quick bath, unpacked. There was a new chest in his quarters, well not new, it had been in his mother’s room as long as he could remember, always locked, no matter how he had tried to pick the locks. Interesting. He put it out of his mind and went downstairs. It was a good night, as were the next several.

The night of his twenty first birthday was even better, his mother throwing a party to end all parties. They were raucous enough that the guard came and broke it up. He sang with his mother and sister, and fell into a bed with a man that he forgot the name of come morning, and when he woke up there were honey cakes and his mother had a look on her face that he hadn’t seen very much.

It was a solemn look, and she seldom wasn’t smiling. “Mama?”

“I have a couple gifts for you,” she said. She handed him a box. “Your father was a drunkard and a wastrel, and I am glad I kicked him out and he drank himself to death, but once upon a time, he had beautiful penmanship, and wrote me love letters that were transcendent. The nib he used, an ink pot, they’ll suit your hand.”

Jaskier looked at them. He didn’t remember the man much, Mama had quite literally kicked him out when Priscilla wasn’t even a year old. She had always been honest with them about once he had been good but then fallen too far and didn’t want to be saved. He supposedly had the man’s jawline. He opened the box and they were beautiful things. “Thank you,” he said.

“And I have this for you,” she said, “from me personally.” She shook it out and it was the most gorgeous coat. “The height of fashion in Beauclair.” 

Jaskier almost swooned at the gold brocade on the light green fabric. It was stunning craftsman ship, and if he didn’t smell like last night’s ale, he would be putting it on; he drew a finger over the stitching carefully. “It is stunning,” he said.

“And one more thing.” Juliana held out a key. “Watch me very carefully, Julian.” She hadn’t called him that in years, so if she used the name now, it must be important. He watched her twist and move the metal on the key and then push it all back in place. “Repeat that.”

He could memorize three different roles in a play in a night, this was nothing. He copied her motions, and glanced at her.

“I have worn that key, since I was twenty one, and now I pass it onto you, my love.” She smiled. “You will guard it well, as I did, and my father, and his father, and his mother, and all the way back to the Leon Pankratz who commissioned Zoltan to make that key, and that chest there. Your true gift is what is in that chest. And it must be kept secret. Even from your sister. It belongs only to the oldest, to the one who carries Dandelion’s name. Guard it well, Julian, until it is your turn to pass it on.” She stroked a line from his forehead to his chin, as she had done since he was a baby and left him be.

Jaskier’s hands were shaking, and it took a few tries to get the key into the slot. The click of it was so loud, but not as loud as his heartbeat. He lifted the lid and folded back the fabric. He fell down, in pure shock and glorious heartache.

Because there sat Dandelion’s lute. The one that he had been given on one of his first adventures with Geralt, so the story said. From the King of Elves. Jaskier had always wished elves had been real, he would have dearly loved to meet an elf. He lifted the lute out, and gave it a hesitant strum. It sounded perfect. Dandelion’s hands had touched this wood. Four hundred years of Julians and Julianas had touched this, protected it and it was his turn. He carefully set it aside and there were half a dozen books in the bottom of the chest, resting on doublets that must have been Dandelion’s. Jaskier didn’t care that he was crying, only someone truly heartless wouldn’t be moved by these artifacts.

He picked up the book on the left and opened it. The pages weren’t brittle, the writing not faded, almost like there was some sort of enchantment protecting it. But magic was as real as the elves were. Wise women who were called sorceress, because they didn’t have the words for the science they had been doing. “Oh, Melitele,” he breathed out. These were Dandelion’s private journals, a tear fell on a page and he was terrified of the damage he had caused, but the water just skittered off the page not leaving a mark. They must be treated with something to protect them.

He flipped open the first page, it was crossed out and restarted so many times, and then he read,

_You’ll know the truth though, my beloved grandson, my Leon._

_His name was Geralt, he was my best friend, and he called me Dandelion._

Jaskier groaned a bit, because it was just going to be all the stories the man had made up over the years, their first fully collected moment. It was an incredible treasure, to be sure, but really, he had been hoping for the truth of Dandelion. He was putting the journal back, when he noticed one other thing at the bottom of the trunk, an odd bit of a medallion. He picked it up, and it was so oddly warm to the touch.

He traced the wolf’s head, it was an incredibly out of fashion thing, no one wore such heavy jewelry anymore, but he couldn’t resist wearing something that had belong to the master bard. He put it over his neck and the whole room went dark. Out of the corner of his eye he saw mountains of the north, and a keep nestled in them. Then the apparition walked through the wall and sat on a chair. 

It was strumming the lute that Jaskier had just touched. 

He watched his ancestor, he watched Dandelion sit there and sing Toss A Coin to Your Witcher, and then shout, “Come on, Geralt, you know you love it.” 

“I’ve grown used to it,” a raspy and low voice said. “Come on Dandelion, that wraith nest needs tending to if we want a room tonight.” 

“Yes, yes, but have you considered -” Dandelion stood and walked away, talking to a man that Jaskier couldn’t see. He tore the medallion off and threw it into the chest. The light in the room returned to normal, and the journal he had put away was in his lap, open to a sketch of a man.

Jaskier ghosted a finger over the man’s features. He didn’t need to see the name on the page to know it was Geralt of Rivia. “Magic isn’t real,” Jaskier whispered. “Geralt wasn’t real.” He looked around the room, but he was alone. 

The music hung in the air though. 

And he wondered.

On his twenty first birthday, Jaskier Pankratz sat on the floor of his room and began to read the private journals of Dandelion.


End file.
